Vaccine Fraudster Gets Jail Time

The researcher who spiked rabbit blood with human antibodies to make an HIV vaccine look more effective is sentenced to 57 months in prison and must repay his National Institutes of Health grant.

Written byBob Grant

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WIKIMEDIA, VALERIE EVERETT

A former Iowa State University (ISU) scientist who pled guilty to felony counts of research misconduct earlier this year for adding human antibodies to blood from rabbits to make an HIV vaccine appear more effective is going to jail. Dong-Pyou Han, who was forced to resign from ISU in 2013 after the fraud was discovered, will serve 57 months in prison and will have to repay the $7.2 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant that funded the research, according to The Des Moines Register.

“I deeply regret any and all misconduct,” Han said in the Iowa courtroom where he was sentenced last week (July 1). “I meant no harm to anyone.”

Such stiff penalties are rare in cases of scientific misconduct. Guilty parties are ...

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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